


Waiting to Die

by MmeCurie



Category: Assassin's Creed, The Walking Dead - All Media Types
Genre: Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 23:32:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3400322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MmeCurie/pseuds/MmeCurie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is a graveyard and the dead walk the land.  Surviving is a fight and all who endure it know they are only waiting to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Scratched Life](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/99509) by Bulletproof-eggs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've edited the story to include a nickname for my character - Rocket. She is intentionally nameless and mostly undescribed so my readers can picture her any way they want but she needed some kind of moniker.

It was dark and I needed to get away from everyone else.  I was so tired of it all: the running, the fighting, the pain of simply surviving.  Sometimes it felt like I was occupying the body of someone else in a dream or a nightmare and when I woke up I’d feel my pillow under my head, pull the blankets up and sigh in relief.   That world I used to know was long gone and the new one that took its place will never be the same again.  It would always be this… scratching and struggling and chipping away at some kind of existence… not really life anymore, not mine at least… not what I wanted.  It’s just waiting to die.  And if I’m lucky, I’d stay dead because some kind soul took the time to shoot me in the head or maybe stab me through the temple.  It’s the only way to keep from coming back as one of those reanimated dead with their empty, white eyes and need to feed.

A herd of them passed by today.  We barely made it out of the woods and into our latest shelter, a beaten up old steel container in a field of them in some industrial park just beyond the border of upstate New York and Canada.  I remember a sign that read Sarnia and choking on a laugh because it reminded me of those dumb books I’d read as a little girl.  Narnia.  If only reality could be as good as fiction.  Nope.  Instead we’re stuck in a post-apocalyptic nightmare that was written by some maniacal bastard. Figures.

 The plan was to keep heading north.  We hoped the snow would stop the white-eyes from walking and give us a respite.  The freezing cold of winter was a risk itself but one we were willing to take.  Our group was pretty small and that’s a good thing because we could ration food better.  We kept our distance from others and try to avoid any groups bigger than ours.  It wasn’t worth trying to join forces or take in others. Up North, the living were more raw and hardened than we were expecting.  We were the newcomers and we weren’t welcome.

The industrial park we had holed up in had been used before.  We’d shored up the chain link fence as much as possible and managed to move, with a lot of effort, an empty container over the breach.  It would do… until it didn’t.  But that was life.  Everything worked until it broke, including people. 

We had an unspoken trust among us and no one asked too many questions.  We’d all covered each other’s backs countless times so no one said anything as I pushed the sliding door of the container open and slipped outside.  The air was crisp but not freezing and I needed a breath of it.  I felt constricted in that black cavern and the echoing of every movement anyone made felt like a hammer inside my skull.  I couldn’t stand it any longer so I left my pack behind and sought out some solitude. 

The park felt like a cemetery of fallen buildings.  The empty shipping containers cast long shadows over the ground and the light of the moon turned everything into stark black and white.  Broken branches, leaves and other detritus littered the pavement.  Long, dead grass rattled in the breeze where it grew from cracked concrete and fissures in the paved field I wandered through.  Everything was hollow here, myself included.  

Hal was standing at the broken chain link fence and he nodded at me as I approached.  His latest acquisition, a nice military issue sniper rifle, hung from a thick leather strap around his neck and he held it couched in his hands like a lover.  The red glass of the scope seemed like the only thing that had a hint of color in this desolate landscape.  I could see it against the khaki canvas coat he wore and only the whites of his eyes showed against the midnight hue of his skin.  He was the darkest skinned man I had ever known and he blended into the night like he was made of it.  Hal wasn’t his real name.  No one knew what it was except for him, I guess, but he said he went by it because of some old movie he liked as a kid.  Hal was the name of a sentient computer, he said, and he liked it because the movie was made long before anyone had a clue of what the future would be like.  They thought it would be bright and shiny, full of space travel and other malarkey.  I guess no one predicted a virus that would turn dead people into zombies and undo a century or more of technological advances in the blink of an eye. 

I nodded back at Hal as I passed him and walked toward the chain link fence.  I checked the knife and gun in the belt slung around my hips and tugged my jeans up on my hips.  They were so worn out they were always slipping down and leaving a gap beneath my shirts that annoyed me.  It wasn’t like I had a whole lot of options for clothes so I just kept pulling them up.  I lifted my foot to wedge the toe of my boot into the fence and grabbed the links up above my head to start climbing.  Hal’s voice came out of the darkness.

“You going out there?”  I paused and called over my shoulder.

“Yeah.” 

“OK, girlie.”  That was all.  He didn’t ask why or for how long.  His tone told me what I already knew.  _Take care of yourself and don’t lead the dead back to bother us if you fuck up._ He knew I was capable of protecting myself and his calling me ‘girlie’ wasn’t distinct to me.  Anyone female in the group was ‘girlie’; anyone male was ‘man’.  He never called anyone by their names unless he was forced to, not even my nickname, Rocket.  Maybe it was his own defense mechanism.  We all had our own ways of coping with the ever present fact that we were all going to die someday, somehow.  I was just a matter of time.  Just waiting to die.

I walked in a generally south west direction.  I’d spotted a hunting blind not too far into the woods earlier when we had passed by.  It wasn’t long before I spotted it.  It looked like a dilapidated shack perched in a tree and seemed like a safe enough place to find some solitude.  I stood and watched it, listening and waiting for any indication that there was danger but I didn’t see or hear anything other than the usual sounds of the night in a deserted forest.  It was too shadowy and dark despite the moon to see inside the black hole of the doorless structure.  The only way to know for sure was to climb up and have a look.  I used the v-shaped trunks of the two trees that held the blind to shimmy upwards.  When I was mostly there, my legs simply weren’t long enough to span the distance between the trunks so I bunched my muscles and lunged upwards to grasp the edge of the doorway.  I hung there for a moment and then did a pull up to drag myself inside the blackness of its space. 

My efforts were pretty graceless but I still marveled at how much stronger and leaner I’d gotten over the past two years.  That was due in part to a form of starvation, I guess.  The other portion of it was sheer necessity and the survival skills I’d learned along the way.  There wasn’t much to me like there used to be.  I was never weak but I certainly couldn’t have pulled myself up into a place over my head from full arm extension.  My already small breasts were smaller, my legs more muscular, my arms had become wiry.  I used to think I had stupidly chubby chipmunk cheeks but in the few times I’d seen my reflection recently, even those last vestiges of a young, innocent appearance had faded away into the angular lines of a scrappy, hardened woman.  My eyebrows were full and a little shapeless, I had acquired scrapes and scars on my exposed skin and my hair was always a mess of frizzy waves and curls, no matter how long it had gotten.  So much for that.  I’d cared little for being a girly girl before all of this but now, no one looked good anymore.  This world was a pretty cruel playing field and if you were vain… you were more than likely long dead or looking worse than the most hideous of the living.  Was that irony?  Who knows?  I certainly couldn’t go look it up on the internet. 

The only sign that I wasn’t alone in the hunting blind was the singed, orange glow of the tip of a cigarette in the darkness, followed quickly by the subtle smell of smoke.  A breeze was blowing through the structure from behind me so I hadn’t noticed the smell before.  I dropped to my knees and reached for the gun on my belt on instinct, moving quickly with a practiced ease despite fear making my heart leap in my chest.  I had it cocked and aimed into the darkness within a fraction of a second.

“Easy, there, Rocket.”  The low, even toned voice was familiar and yet it still took a moment for me to lower my weapon.  When I did, I rested the muzzle of the gun on the wooden plank floor and leaned on it with a loud exhale.  I tipped my head back in relief.   A short, cynical snort of laughter came from where the glowing cigarette moved in the darkness with the hand that held it.  I raised my head and squinted, trying to see him.

“Jesus, Connor!  I didn’t know you were up here.”  My voice came out higher than normal, more evidence of the fright I’d sustained. 

“Mm-hm.”  Connor intoned in his usual, careless way.  He wasn’t the most social person in our group.  In fact, he was the least likely to win the “Likable Person Award for Excellence” in this Post-Zombie-Apocalypse world.  I tucked the gun away and felt incredibly awkward as I steadied myself against the door frame where my toes dangled outside, a dozen or so feet above the ground.  I’d made it all the way up there and felt stupid for it.  Connor had probably listened to the noises I’d made as I climbed and known who I was before I even cleared the threshold.  I was one of only four women in the group and the most likely to venture out on my own.  At 28, I was also the youngest woman by about 6 years.  I sighed silently.  Turning to leave would be just as embarrassing as my foolish climb into an occupied blind.  I would probably have been dead if Connor wasn’t one of ours. 

Connor would have to be incredibly stupid to think he was generally well liked among our group.  No one necessarily disliked him, but he was pretty rough around the edges… and everywhere else… and made it obvious he preferred being alone and having space over socializing.  He made no effort to change that, either, so he had to know I was thinking of clearing out just to avoid being near him. 

I heard Connor move in the dark, the sound of fabric on wood, the scree of metal on glass or glass on metal. There was a squeak and a low hiss and then the cigarette moved downward toward what must have been Connor’s left.  Light filled the tiny place as the lantern’s mantle caught and Connor fine-tuned the fuel and then lowered the glass.  He settled back with his shoulders against the wall and his left arm resting on his bent knees as the steady hissing hum of the lit lantern filled the air around him and cast everything into shadow on the right side of his body.  The light shone on his hair that was just barely long enough to be held back in a little looped bun on his head.  He looked up at me and gestured with his right hand, the one casually holding the cigarette between his second and third fingers. 

“Want one?”  I shook my head.  Connor shrugged his shoulders and brought his hand to his mouth to take a drag.  The orange end flared in the newly lit space.   He was facing me but seemed to be staring at the wall.  A drifting string of smoke trailed from the cigarette when he stopped inhaling from it and lowered his wrist to his bent, bloodstained knees.  He held the smoke he’d breathed into his lungs for a long moment and then breathed it out through just parted lips slowly, briefly surrounding his face and shoulders with a hazy drift.  He wore a sleeveless t-shirt despite the chilliness of the night and I caught myself staring at the tattoos he had on his left arm.  The design went from just below his muscular shoulder to his wrist, a collage of mismatched subject matter ranging from the American flag, a wolf and an eagle to a rocky cliffside, bones, a random hat, a “Mom” banner, an old age of sail ship’s wheel and some Native American stuff like a turtle, feathers and a tomahawk.    He was, after all, at least part Native.  The tattoos were marred by a large, fresh wound on the side of his elbow that had been sewn up recently and then partially bandaged over where some of the stitches had ripped open and begun bleeding again.  Our unofficial doctor in the group was an older woman who used to be a respiratory therapist.  She was the only one with any medical training to speak of but she did a pretty bang-up job most of the time and was well respected for the way she had taken to combat field medicine and extremely limited supplies.  People had died to keep her alive.

“Sit, if you want.  I’m not gonna bite.”  Connor wryly smirked as he said it but never looked at me.  It was as much of an invitation as I’d ever get from a man like him so I decided to just take it.  At least he wouldn’t want to fill the time with idle chit chat.  I pulled my jeans up and took a seat on the other side of the lantern from him with my back against the same wall he leaned on, pulling my hair over one shoulder so it wouldn’t snag on the rough wood and crossing my arms over my stomach.  I extended my legs, crossed my ankles, closed my eyes and tilted my head back against the wall.  Only the occasional caw of a bird and once the very distant sound of a couple gunshots pierced the quiet, soothing sound of the lantern burning between us.  Connor finished his cigarette and even the smell of smoke dissipated.  It was nice. 

After maybe thirty minutes, I was drifting off when I heard Connor move. I cracked my eyes open and watched him tilt his hips to dig another cigarette and a lighter out of his back left pocket.  He briefly glanced in my direction and then lit it, clinking the lid of the lighter shut and stuffing it back into his pocket. I watched the way his long legs moved and then returned to their bent position.  He rested his left arm back on his knee when he was done, attaining a relaxed posture once again.  For a man as dirty and disheveled as the rest of us, he wasn’t too bad to look at, especially since he wasn’t sending off an air of “keep away from me or I’ll break your face” as he usually did, but I kept my eyes mostly closed so I wouldn’t be obvious. 

“Where’s your ring?”  Connor asked the wall after his first puff.  I felt my breath catch and I looked over at him.  I’d never talked about my dead husband before but only recently, my hand had become stuck in some debris and I’d sacrificed my wedding ring to save my life.  My thinner finger had slipped so easily from it and it still hurt to think about even though he’d been gone since almost the beginning.  I’d originally kept wearing it to remember him by but as time had passed and survival had become more important than remembering those who had fallen, I’d stopped looking at it the same way.  I didn’t even cry at losing the ring.  That didn’t mean the loss of my husband meant anything less to me… It just paled in comparison.  Everything had that once held meaning.

“I… lost it.”

“Mm-hm.”  He didn’t even look at me.  I suddenly felt like I should explain myself, defend my lack.  I felt like Connor had judged me and found me guilty of… something.  I covered my naked left hand with my other and suddenly felt tears coming to my eyes.  I turned away so the shadows beside me would hide my face but the tears never fell.  It was like my body considered such a flagrant waste of water to be unnecessary.  I sighed and attempted to think of something nice to say or a way to put into words that I’d been a faithful wife while my marriage had been in existence and beyond.  What came out was entirely _not_ what I planned on.

“I haven’t had sex since he died.” I felt like puking after I said it but it was already out there, hanging in the air between us like a stench.

“Oh, yeah?”  A hint of surprise seemed to be in Connor’s voice when he spoke.  It put me on edge and I replied right after, defensive.

“Yeah!”  I turned and looked at him angrily.  He had his eyes trained on that same wall and he merely raised an eyebrow and took another long drag of his cigarette.  He tilted his head and shrugged his shoulders.  He spoke as he exhaled.

“Well… fuck _that_.” Each word was accompanied by a burst of smoke and it was as if he had said so much more.   _That’s a long time. How virtuous of you._ I burst into awkward, cynical laughter and it was painfully loud in the small space. 

“What’s the point? Who’d fuck me anyway?  _You_?” My tone was sarcastic and biting and I waited for Connor to return some barb for my implied insult.  He only exhaled more smoke like a perpetually extinguishing campfire so I returned to facing the doorway of the hunting blind and staring out into the night.  I clutched the sleeves of my shirt in my fists. When he finally did speak a couple long, silent minutes later, his voice was the same low tone it always was.

“I’d fuck you.”  His unaffected statement made me snort.

“And if I said no?”  He shrugged again.

“OK.”  His disinterested tone was bothersome yet I started to think about it.  What did it matter? What _was_ the point? It was something to do other than think, I guess.  My anger, not only at Connor’s lack of opinion but also at losing my husband, losing _everything_ , made me feel reckless.  I was finally feeling something else other than emptiness.  My body wanted sex again in a way I hadn’t allowed it to in a long time.  I held my breath and tried to make it go away but it wouldn’t.  It was different from what I’d craved when I was married.  It was raw and stripped down to an animal need.

“What if I said yes… right now?”  It was an impulsive and dangerous thing to ask.  For only the second time since I’d occupied the same space as he, Connor looked at me, turning his head toward me slightly and sliding his dark amber eyes to the sides, cutting through the air between us.

“I’d _fuck_ you.”  The way he said it, moving his head slightly forward and drawing out the word like he was already inside me, made my muscles go lax in my body.  In that moment I wanted him so badly.  He kept his eyes on me as he brought his cigarette to his lips and took another drag, covering the lower portion of his face below his nose with his hand.  I sat up and turned toward him, breathing faster than normal.  This was a new thing for me, this feeling of impunity and abandon.  I’d been a pretty naive virgin when I’d married my husband and the concept of just screwing a random person for fun grated against my values.  But this world had turned values upside down.  It had fostered violence and inhibition and cut down anyone and anything in its path without any discretion.  Values hadn’t saved anyone.  What was sex when I’d _killed_ people?  It didn’t matter that they were already dead.  The actions were the same. 

I’d lusted after the tattooed, pierced, motorcycle driving, bad-boy type as much as anyone else when I was younger but had settled down with a blue collar man and we’d bought a house.  It was love, it was right and it made sense.  Connor wasn’t my type.  He wasn’t my husband.  He was wrong in so many ways and nothing about his attitude was sensible.  Connor was a deadly man: huge, muscular, hardened.  He fought like the devil himself and was frighteningly accurate with his compound bow.  He may not have earned himself any friends with his mannerisms and loner tendencies but he was a man simply trying to survive in his own way, just like the rest of us.  The situation I’d just put myself into wasn’t about love or physical attraction.  It was only about sex.  

My sense of self-preservation started edging in despite the fire burning in my crotch.

“I can’t afford to get knocked up.”  Connor transferred his cigarette to his left hand and leaned to the side to fish around in his pack that was resting in the corner next to his compound bow and his bulky supply of arrows.  He held up a length of four condoms in their wrinkled foil packaging, letting them dangle from between two fingers.  He turned his sharp gaze on me again and then tossed the condoms across the blind onto my thighs.  Well, that covered pregnancy and disease. 

I unbuckled my belt and dropped my gun and knife to the side.  Connor casually stubbed out his cigarette and watched me unbutton my long sleeved shirt and take it off.  I wore a tank top with no bra underneath.  His eyes darted to my breasts and then he sat up from the wall and pulled his sleeveless t-shirt off.  He was ripped… the biggest man I’d ever seen.  I hid a stab of apprehension by grabbing the condoms, bending forward and unlacing my boots.  I stood up to push them off and slide them to the side.  When I was barefoot, I felt the slightly damp boards beneath my feet as I slowly took a step toward Connor and then another.  He stayed where he was and when I was close enough, he reached up and grasped the waistband of my jeans at my sides with his hands.  I knelt down between his knees and rested my hands on his shoulders.  Connor kept his eyes on my neck and chest and let his hands roam onto my lower back and the top of my ass.   In this position, not sitting on my heels, I was taller than him and I leaned closer and used my left hand to push his chin up until he tipped his head back.  I tried kissing him but it didn’t seem right.  He neither added to the kiss nor sat idly through it but he tasted of the cigarettes he had smoked and anything as emotionally intimate as a kiss felt forced and wrong.  He clearly wasn’t the romantic type.  I pushed back from him and sat on my heels. 

I still wanted sex, I just didn’t know how to initiate it.  Moving my hands between us, I tore off one of the condoms and threw the rest in front of Connor’s pack.  I held the one in my hand up in front of his face and he took it from me.  We locked eyes for a moment before Connor pulled my shirt up.  He took my breast in his unoccupied hand and squeezed it, hard.  I gasped at it and again when he sat forward, put the corner of the condom wrapper in his mouth and took me around my ribcage with both of his hands to rather forcefully lay me on my back beside the lantern.  The condom fell out of his mouth and landed on my stomach when he knelt over me, straddling my legs.   He pushed my shirt up further under my chin and squeezed both of my breasts at once.  My knees bent up on their own at the painful pleasure I got from his touch until they hit Connor’s ass and could go no further.  I frantically unbuttoned my jeans and lifted my hips. 

Connor made another momentary stab of eye contact with me before leaving my breasts, hooking his fingers under the waistband of my jeans and dragging them down, panties and all.  He scooted backwards and I managed to get my left leg out from under him and out of my jeans.  He left them on my other leg.

Connor let his eyes move slowly over my body and his voice was gruff and aroused.

“Are you wet?”

“God, Connor, what do you think?” I nearly screamed.  He reached down and swiped his fingers between my legs.  I arched my back and bent my legs up again, the one free one rising higher than the one trapped under him.  Connor pushed two fingers deep into me and then pulled them out as he unbuckled his belt and opened his jeans with one hand.  I couldn’t stay still or quiet when he pushed his fingers in again.  I clutched at his knee with my right hand and grabbed the bunched up fabric of my shirt in the middle of my chest with my left.   I barely heard him over my own panting breaths.

“Fuck, you _are_!”  He took his penis from his pants and withdrew his fingers from me to snatch up the condom from my stomach and put it on.  He was big.  I feared this was going to hurt no matter how horny I was because it had just been too long since I’d last had sex.   He hooked his right hand under my knee and pushed it up toward my chest so far my hip raised up off the floor.  His palm and wrist pressed against the back of my leg and his thumb dug into the inside of my knee as he pushed his jeans down further with his left hand. 

As I lay on the cold floor boards, I felt Connor position himself for entry and then I was aware of nothing other than him pushing all the way into me.  I cried out but Connor leaned forward onto his left elbow and covered my mouth with his hand.  He didn’t move and I panted through my nose and trembled beneath him for what felt like an eternity.  He let his hand up enough so I could breathe through my mouth but kept his eyes fixed on mine and waited until I was still.  Making excessive noise was dangerous at best and I knew I had to stay quiet or we’d draw trouble our way.  Connor’s face was close to mine and I could smell the cigarette smoke on him that mingled with the prevailing odors of sweat, campfire and dirt that lingered on us all.  I closed my eyes, clenched my teeth and lifted my chin out from under his hand when Connor began to move in me again.  He wasn’t gentle or slow about it.  He had meant every word of what he’d said, especially the _fuck_ part.  I did my best to keep quiet but Connor didn’t do anything to help me.  His pace was hard and fast and he went deep with every thrust, using the position he held me in to his advantage.  When I tensed my leg and tried to lower it he just held it harder and kept me where he wanted me.  I struggled against him but only managed to tilt a bit more onto my right side and that suited Connor just fine. 

The wood of the blind creaked in time with our bodies and I tried to contain my cries of both distress and enjoyment.  I grabbed a handful of my own hair and clenched it, hit Connor’s knee with my fist and still he went on and on.  I felt my body sliding incrementally backwards under Connor’s relentless movement until he stopped suddenly.  He slid his hand down and around from my knee, grabbed my upper thigh with both hands and hauled my body up against his as he sat back onto his feet.  I cried out in surprise and then again when he held my leg against his chest with my calf switched over to his left shoulder and lifted my hips up off the floor.   He held me like that, kneeling upright with my right leg still between his knees.   He resumed his steady pounding into me only this time he used my body’s movement in conjunction with his.  His fingers dug into my flesh and the weight of my body pulled against his grip on my thigh.  Despite that, this position felt a lot better than the last and it didn’t take long for an orgasm to creep up on me.  I knew I couldn’t keep quiet so I dragged my shirt up with both hands and bit it as hard as I could as wave upon heated wave came over me.  I tasted salty sweat and metallic blood; grit squeaked on my teeth as I clenched down and screamed into the textured fabric.  My body writhed and jerked, struggling to hold onto the sensations and then fighting down the growing discomfort of my overstimulated vagina once the pleasure had faded.  Connor tightened his right arm’s grip around my leg and reached down to my left breast with his other hand.  He squeezed it as he came, thrusting exceptionally hard into me during his few moments of climax and then holding himself deep within me in a partial arch backwards with his face angled up at the ceiling.  He let go of my leg and my hips fell to the floor, that simple act of gravity simultaneously removing him from my body.  We were both sweaty and panting.  I lay where I had fallen, completely on my right side and my left leg in front of my right.  Connor braced his left hand against the wall above the lantern and leaned against it to catch his breath. 

I was surprised when he put his hand on my left hip and gently squeezed it. 

“You OK?”  I nodded and mumbled that I was.  He took his hand from me and removed his condom.  I don’t even know what on earth he did with it.  Maybe he threw it out the door.  All I know is it took me longer to sit up than it took Connor to pull his pants back on, close them and buckle his belt.  My muscles felt weak and everything between my legs was swollen and throbbing.  I kind of liked it.

 Connor waited until I had gathered my things and put them on before turning off the fuel to the lamp.  It sputtered and died, casting us both into darkness. 

“We can’t show up at camp together,” I said in his direction.

“Nope,” came his nonchalant reply.

“I’ll go back first, OK?”

“Mm-hm.”

I sat with my legs hanging out of the doorway.  I was about to climb out but then I paused and looked behind me into the darkness where I knew Connor had resumed sitting against the wall where I’d found him. 

“I… wouldn’t mind getting fucked by you again sometime.”

“OK.” Unaffected.  I looked down at my knees and pressed my lips together to keep from smiling and then turned and gripped the edge as I let my body slide out.  I swung by my hands in midair for a minute and then let myself drop the last 6 feet or so to the ground.  Glancing up at the door, I wanted to see Connor looking out to see if I landed alright.  He wasn’t looking.  Who was I fooling?  We were just two people in this crazy world waiting to die.


	2. Chapter 2

Kerri stitched up a laceration I got on the side of my neck and collar bone from some barbed wire the other day that wouldn’t stop bleeding.  Connor watched me.  I wished he wouldn’t because it made it hard not to look at him when I could feel his eyes.  They burned through the space between us, always speaking to me, always reminding me of what we’d done. We hadn’t spoken to each other since.  That wasn’t unusual behavior for him; his loner tendencies kept him apart from the group unless he had to be close by yet I found myself more aware of Connor’s presence.  I could no longer decide if he’d always been around like that or if he was keeping just a little closer to wherever I was. 

I tried to ignore him.  We couldn’t make a public display of our so-called relationship, even if it was just that we had sex once.  I didn’t want the gossip or the attention.  I couldn’t bear the thought of everyone asking prying questions.  _How did it happen?  Why him?  What were you thinking?  Was it good?  Are you two together now?_

We’re both adults so why did it have to be so complicated?  Where once I never felt anything for him, I found myself seeking out his location or listening for the gruff responses he would give anyone who bothered to attempt engaging him in any kind of conversation. 

Sometimes I wondered if I’d made a grave mistake.  I’d banged a guy completely on impulse and not for any real feelings for him. The thought turned my stomach.  And yet a completely different feeling had begun to take over my mind.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it… about us.  I wanted more sex just for the chance to touch him and be touched.  I wanted to talk to him and learn more about him.  But the whole point of what we’d done was to avoid all of that.  It was just a way to seek out some satisfaction and move on but I couldn’t.  I craved a relationship with a man who was as far from relationship material as I could ever find.  I’d have better luck getting an affectionate hug or kind words from Hal, Vincent, Mick or any of the other guys in our group.  Despite all of us being hardened from the life we were leading, if I just asked…  they would kindly give me the affection I craved even if it felt forced or was out of pity.  The truth was, though, I didn’t want it from them.  I respected them; I followed their direction, especially Vincent, who was our strongest voice in leading us.  But I didn’t want them to touch me.  I didn’t want them inside me. 

So I was stuck in quite a strange pickle.  I wanted Connor to want me. I wanted him to love me.  I wanted a relationship… someone to hold me and just _be_ with me.  I cried for my husband for the first time in almost a year.  I felt like I’d cheated on him even though I hadn’t.  More than that… I was incredibly lonely and it hurt like a fire deep in my lungs and charred my bones if I thought about it too much.  Somehow I’d attached my heart to the one person I thought I could get even a little piece of something resembling love back, even if it was only a very superficial, physical part of it. 

A white-eyes startled me when I was looking for anything edible in the woods yesterday and as I pulled out my knife and raised it to stab its head, an arrow pierced it from the side and dropped it at my feet.  My heart raced in my chest, but not from the corpse.  It was the sound and then the sight of Connor coming up to me to retrieve his arrow that had me so jittery.  As he bent to pull out his arrow I spoke more harshly to him than I intended. 

“I had it under control.  I’m not helpless.”  He stood up straight and looked down at me while he rubbed some leaves over his arrow to clean it.  He spent a long minute looking hard into my eyes before responding. 

“I know.”  He dropped his arrow into his quiver.

“So why did you shoot it?”  I asked.  Connor shrugged his wide shoulders and started to turn away.

“Because I could.”  He walked away before I thought of anything to say.  I could have thanked him but he wouldn’t have cared for it.  I ground my teeth in frustration.  I wanted him to touch me, to do… something to me, anything, just so I could feel him on my skin.  I didn’t see him again until this morning.

He walked into camp with a deer over his shoulders.  He must have shot it in the early morning or overnight and he looked exhausted when he dropped it down next to the campfire.  He didn’t say anything; he just walked over to the area he had claimed as his own, unpacked his blanket and lay down to sleep.  Everyone pitched in to skin and gut the deer.  We were all grateful for his contribution because it meant we would eat heartily for a few days and have plenty of dried tidbits to last for the lean times that would be coming our way as the temperatures dropped.  It was already nearly freezing at night and the days weren’t much nicer. 

On a whim, once we finally got some of the meat cooked, I skewered a big piece on a stick and took it over to where Connor was sleeping.  I got the side-eye from almost everyone and a few raised eyebrows but it was the least anyone could do for the man who had just fed us all for quite some time.  I rounded him where he lay tilted onto his left side with his head resting on his left arm.  I squatted down next to his face to look at him and took an extra moment to watch him sleep.  The muscles under his skin were relaxed and his features were smoother than usual in such an utterly relaxed state.  It made him look years younger and significantly more attractive.  His breathing changed and I thought he would wake but then it settled back into a regular, restful pattern.  I felt bad for waking him when he seemed so tired but in just that short time, the steam that had been pouring off of the meat had dwindled a bit.  If I let him sleep it would be ice cold and not terribly appetizing.  We needed to take our pleasure when we could so I poked his shoulder with my finger.  He jumped awake, swinging his right arm over to grab his bow beside his body.  I fell backwards onto my ass but managed not to drop the meat.  Connor was grumpy and it showed by the way he spoke as he dropped his bow rather forcefully back on the ground.

“Why’d you sneak up on me like that?  Fuck!”  he hissed.  I just offered the stick to him from where I sat.  I must have looked ridiculous, leaning forward and reaching my arm between my knees toward him with a giant chunk of meat dangling from the sharpened stick I held in my fist like a cave woman. 

“It’s hot.”  I said, more like an excuse than a reason.  He sat up the rest of the way and took it from me.  He took a giant bite right away and made a small noise of appreciation in his chest.  I wasn’t going to sit there and watch the man eat so I got up.  He turned his head and watched me move around his feet to walk toward the campfire.  I glanced at him and he nodded just slightly at me.  I refrained from smiling as I returned to the group because I didn’t want to expose how happy I was that he had just thanked me. 

He thanked me further later in the day as the sun was setting.  I was on one of my walks on the far side of the industrial park.  Something shiny in the dirt beside some beat up old carcass of a car caught my eye so I crouched down and uncurled my cold fingers from inside my sleeve to reach for it.  The crunch of boots on gravel alerted me that I wasn’t alone and I stood back up and spun around with my hand automatically resting on the handle of my gun only to see Connor walking towards me from between two containers. 

“I swear you’re stalking me, Connor.  You’re turning up a lot when I think I’m alone.”  He kept walking closer until we were standing face to face. 

“Does it bother you?” He started reaching into his pocket to get a cigarette.  The memory of him tasting like smoke came to me suddenly.  I reached out and put my hand on his wrist to stop him as I answered his question. 

“No…”  I pulled his wrist toward me and he let his fingers slip out of his pocket.  I angled myself backwards and leaned against the rusted out shell of the car.  Connor stepped closer and I raised his hand to my chest.  He exhaled and leaned against me, squeezing my breast in his hand.  I held onto his wrist and side and tilted my hips, grinding against him.  I was pretty sure he was aroused. 

“I want you to kiss me.”  I said softly.  I figured if I said it, it would seem less like some romantic desire and more like what I’d requested…. Just a kiss.   Connor stayed pressed against me and looked at my face and then my eyes.  It almost hurt, how hard his gaze was.  His pupils were dark black, almost lost in the shaded amber of his irises.  It was overcast so there was no blazing light from the dusk to illuminate them.  I hesitated under his scrutiny and, flustered, tried to explain.

“It doesn’t mean anything.  It… I’m just… I like being kissed when I’m horny.”  Connor moved suddenly, almost before I’d finished speaking.  He pushed me firmly against the car with his body and moved his hand from my breast to the back of my neck and kissed me, hard.  He pulled me into it by my neck and his other hand on my hip so ended up clutching his shoulders.  The second he roughly pushed his tongue into my mouth, I felt that same weakness in my muscles sweeping over me and threatening to make my knees buckle that I’d felt when he’d said in that _way_ , “I’d _fuck_ you”.  The surge of warmth between my legs following that weakness almost finished the job but since I was squashed between Connor and the car I wasn’t going anywhere.  He moved his pelvis against me and I shifted a little to let him between my thighs.  He took his hand from my hip and forced it down between us, leaning slightly down to get a better angle.  His fingers groped over my jeans, moving downward and underneath, rubbing and pressing against me until I had to push on his shoulders and break away from his kiss to breathe. 

Connor wasn’t done yet.  He lingered with his fingers on me, making me steal glances back in the direction of camp in case someone was to come wandering our way and catch us like a couple teenagers feeling each other up under the bleachers in middle school.  We kissed again with a little less frenzy and a tad more focus; kissing him was similar to wrangling with one of those impossible blister packs containing electronics cables from big box stores.  It took incredible effort just to make headway with him and the results were jagged and clumsy.   I sustained collateral kissing damage in the form of a tender spot on my lip from his rough style but the outcome was the same.  I got what I wanted.  I don’t think Connor hated what we did as much as I thought he would.  In fact, when we did finally separate, after he had managed to give me a somewhat subdued orgasm – as if I’d hastily been masturbating in secret – the expression on his face was different for a second.  It was almost like he didn’t want to accept that he might be feeling something for me.  I was glad I’d seen that fleeting change, because it was gone a moment later.  He pulled his arm out from between us and took me around my hips with both hands instead.  He spoke to me in his usual quiet, gruff manner that was all he ever presented to the world. 

“You know where to find me if that wasn’t enough for you.”  Leave it to him to make this my fault.  I rolled my eyes and would have said something snide in return but he shoved his hips against me to emphasize what he’d said.  It was such a turn on that I couldn’t even collect myself.  He allowed a small smirk to curve the side of his mouth as he left me there, barely able to scrape myself off the hood and windshield of that nasty car. 

After Connor disappeared around the corner, I dusted off the back of my jeans and continued on my evening jaunt.  It was full dark when I arrived back at our group’s main camp.  Connor was nowhere to be seen.  I considered going where I knew he’d be but in a sweeping moment of stubbornness, I decided not to. 

I wish I had because the next morning Vincent strolled into camp with a man I hoped I’d never set eyes on again.  Sean Kennich.  He’d led the party I had left my home with and then abandoned me when my husband was injured.  Sean refused to turn back and help us raid a hospital for medical supplies.  We tried to go together but my husband was weak and I wasn’t strong enough to carry him.  He died from his wounds before we got there.  I was alone for some time before Vincent found me and brought me into his fold.  Sean was only out to benefit himself.  He was suspiciously alone and I bitterly wondered if he had left every member of his group to die in some way and taken what they’d had for himself.  My anger boiled but I tried to turn away and hold it in.

Sean saw me when he got closer. 

“Well hey there, beautiful!  Did you get to the hospital alright?  It wasn’t that far.”   His voice turned me into a raging forest fire of hate.  I whirled around and stormed close to him. 

“Don’t you _dare_ fucking talk to me you piece of shit!”  Sean smirked and held his hands up in his usual slick, disarming way.

“Whoah, calm down, sweetness.”  I lunged for him with my knife out.  Vincent somehow caught me before I could do any real damage.  He pried me off and I thrashed in his arms, kicking and screaming obscenities at Sean.  Mick and Hal came running and helped subdue me.  They led me away and I fell down once I was out of sight.  Mick knelt down in front of me and waited for me to stop crying as Hal laid his arm across my shoulders. 

“What’s this about, huh? I’ve never seen you like this.”  Mick asked softly when I’d calmed down. 

“He fucking abandoned us!  My husband’s dead because he refused to help!  Mick, we don’t need him here.  Make him go!  He’ll take what we have and leave us too if you don’t!”  Hal rubbed my shoulders gently and Vincent came over while I was talking and listened to my concerns. 

“I believe in second chances.  How long has it been since you’ve seen him?  More than a year now?  Maybe he’s changed.”  Vincent said calmly.  He was always the diplomatic one. 

“No.  You don’t understand.  He’ll turn on you, all of us!” 

“My decision is made.  I’m sorry for what happened but… you’ll have to make peace with it. He’s a good hunter.  I watched him shoot a bird out of the air and track where it fell.  We need more good shots in our group if we’re going to survive up north.”  I stood up and brushed Hal’s arm off of me to walk away. 

“If your decision is made, so is mine.  I’m leaving.”  I walked stiffly towards where my things were and Sean called over to me.

“You back from crazy town already, _Rocket_?”  Sean exaggerated my nickname in a derisive tone.  I'd taken the nickname for myself after he'd abandoned me so though it was what everyone called me here, he'd never heard it until now.  Vincent stood between us with his hands out in a settling gesture toward us both. 

“Enough.  Both of you.  Rocket, put your things back down.  And Sean, I don’t want you provoking her.” 

I threw my pack on the ground and Vincent gave me a pointed look of frustration.  I handed one right back.  Sean stood there with his stupid grin on that I hated so much.  I pushed past Kerrie and the other women who tried to gather around me and walked away.  I had my head down as I rounded the paved area near the back of the enclosure so I didn’t see Connor until it was too late.  I nearly flew backwards when my shoulder hit his chest.

“Aaaaaah!  Fuck!  What the FUCK Connor?!” I screamed at him.  He stood still and looked at me strangely as I went around him and hurried on.  I kicked anything in my path and settled for shattering the already broken windshield of one of the abandoned cars with a chunk of pavement.  When I was out of breath and exhausted enough to stop, I looked back over my shoulder and saw him still standing there with his arms crossed over his chest.  I flipped him off and he turned away to continue into the camp.  I was furious at everything and that included him.  Arrogant fucker. 

I spent the night in that same car.  It rained, of course.  The sun came out in the morning and I sat in the rays that came into the vehicle staring at the same torn section of dank, moldy upholstery that I had been scrutinizing and occasionally enlarging all night.  My thoughts, which had consisted almost entirely of various forms of “Fuck” had dwindled to a painful silence.  I didn’t want to think about anything anymore.  A shadow blocked the sun and I sighed and turned my head to see who was there to annoy me.  Surprisingly, it was Connor.  He had my pack in his hands.  He pushed it through the window. 

“Still want to leave?”  I looked at him then, surprised.

“Why?  You throwing in with Vincent the Altruistic Asshole to support that bastard?”  I picked at the torn pleather seat as I spoke, pulling crumbs of diseased stuffing out.   Connor shook his head. 

“No.”  I gestured with my hands and shoulders questioningly at him, irritated.  Why did the man never speak in complete sentences?

“Vincent was talking about the situation last night.  He’s asked that everyone leave you alone until you can ‘cool down’.  I questioned his blind decision to let that guy in without making sure everyone was OK with it.  He said if I don’t like his leadership I can leave.  So I’m leaving.  I don’t support shit like that.  Are you coming?”  I grabbed my pack and crawled over to open the car door and get out.

Vincent and Mick were waiting for us at the gate. 

“Connor, I spoke rashly.  We need you.” 

“But you don’t need Rocket?”  Connor gestured to me and I stared at my boots.  Vincent struggled for words.

“We need everyone… but…”  Mick overrode Vincent’s poor argument.

“We all stick together.  We’ve decided to put Sean on a probation period.  4 weeks.  If he’s proven himself, we keep him.  Anyone has a problem, he has to go.”

“I have a problem.  He let my husband die.”  I spit out.  Vincent spoke up.

“We meant within that 4 week period.  Not stuff from before.”  I flung my hands up and stomped back toward the camp.  Connor continued arguing with Mick and Vincent.  I didn’t expect to see him later on.  If he'd decided to leave, there wasn't anything or anyone who could stop him.  I kept to myself over in a dark corner and refused to talk to anyone.  They followed Vincent’s orders and didn’t bother me but I rankled at all the looks of pity that got sent my way, especially from the women.  Sean blatantly watched me.  I wanted to kill him.  I was shocked to see Connor return but he merely settled into his usual place.  The only difference was the higher than normal amount of bristling he did.  No one wanted to go near him, including me.

After 2 days I couldn’t take it anymore.  I chose a mostly empty container on the other side of the industrial park, stockpiled my own firewood and moved out.  Connor lurked, as usual, but he never came over and asked to join me.  I did find a freshly skinned and gutted animal carcass just outside my door once.  It had an arrow stabbed into it so I knew it was from him.   I took it but threw his arrow out the door.  It was gone later.   I dug a trench under one corner and built fires in it to help heat my container.  It was harder to keep it warm because it was just me in it.  My solitary accommodations didn’t last long. 

I was changing into some less dirty clothes one night when I heard my door slide open quietly.  I grabbed my gun and held my shirt over my breasts.  It was Connor. 

“What do you want?”  I spit out.  It was difficult to maintain justifiable anger when he had clearly been watching out for me. 

“You want to fuck?”  His voice was devoid of inflection. I lowered my gun and dropped my shirt in answer.  He shut the door and was across the space in seconds.  The man was hungry. What he didn't announce verbally was more than made up for by his actions. His mouth traveled over my neck and chest as I dragged his shirt off and he lifted me up.  I wrapped my legs around him and he squeezed my ass hard in both his hands.  It was a battle between us  - teeth, nails, pain – I turned all my anger and loneliness toward Connor and he ripped it out of my body by force.  I wanted it to hurt and it did.  I clawed at his skin until he held my hands down.  I fought his grip but he kept me immobilized.  He only let go when I couldn’t keep quiet.  Then he covered my mouth and screwed me even harder.  One of my nipples started to bleed from his teeth but I loved it.  When he came he actually had to repress a shout of his own.   We lay in silence afterwards.  It wasn’t awkward or anything.  It was rather sweet.  We just had nothing to say to each other.  A while later, I got up to pull my extra blanket over because it was starting to get cold.  I was on my knees leaning over when Connor slapped my ass. He’s gotta be an ass man for how much he loves to touch mine.  Not that I was complaining.  I couldn't, since he had his hand over my mouth and I was too busy screaming into it while he fingered me.  Doggie style with Connor was pretty great, I must say.  He’s so fucking huge and I had a lot more control over how deep he went.  Well, until he took over...  We went through two condoms that night and I fell asleep where I collapsed in a haze of exhausted, aching bliss next to Connor while he chain smoked his cigarettes; I was too far gone to care about his filthy habit.   I woke up feeling sore and lay with my eyes closed, thinking about what we'd done and willing Connor to be beside me when I opened them.  He wasn’t.  Even the used condoms were gone.  The man was a ghost.  Only the lingering odor of tobacco and the beautiful bruises he'd left on my skin proved he'd been there at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! Looks like this fic will be a thinly veiled excuse to write lots of sex with a Walking Dead themed Connor. Is anyone complaining? No? Alrighty.


	3. Chapter 3

The decision to hunker down at the industrial park for the winter was a unanimous vote.  Well, unanimous if you didn’t count Connor.  He didn’t vote either way.  Every run we made was about stockpiling now.  We all carried as much as we could scavenge and would cut and chop fire wood about ¾ of a mile from the camp and then lug it in so we would keep any wandering white-eyes away from our location while making so much noise.  Everyone took a turn with the axe and alternated guard duty. 

Sean watched me while I chopped once and whistled when I took off my flannel shirt.  I was in my usual tank top and no bra, so I’m sure my nipples were showing through the fabric.  I ignored him.  He didn’t even deserve my derision.  He made a vulgar gesture at me, wagging his tongue between his fingers in imitation of giving cunnilingus.  What a piece of shit.  As if he would ever care to actually please a woman in that way.  I felt sick to my stomach and slightly threatened but pretended not to care.  I was nervous around him though.  I think I jumped a mile when Hal showed up to take over.

“Easy, girlie.  It’s just me.”  He opened his large, dark hands for the axe and I handed it over. 

“I wonder if Sean'll get his rocks off watching you too?”  Hal looked in his direction and grabbed my arm as I bent down to pick up my shirt and shake off the bits of wood.

“No wonder you’re so freaked.  You never been so skittish.”  He rested the axe head down on the stump and leaned on the handle.  I huffed and started loading wood into a rickety wheel barrow. 

“I’ll never trust him.”  I met Hal’s eyes and he nodded. 

“I don’t trust him either.  Keep your distance from him, girlie.  But just in case, I’m gonna keep my eyes on him so he don’t touch no one else either.”  I stopped loading wood and faced him.

“Thanks Hal.  That means a lot.  He… makes me nervous.  I feel vulnerable I guess, because of what he did.  You’re the best.”  I smiled at him and his bright white grin split his face like a comet in the night sky.  Impulsively, I leaned in and gave him a one armed hug.  His muscles bunched in his shoulder as he moved his arm around my waist to squeeze me back.  I suddenly felt affection for him in a way I never had before.  It was almost like he was the closest thing to family that I could remember in a long time.  It made me consider returning to the main group but then I’d have to give up on the chance that Connor would come back to “visit” me.  I didn’t want to let go of that, no matter how small the chances were.

I think the decision to create my own space had made others consider it.  There had been talk of moving more storage containers around the central gathering place to create a little village of sorts and to allow people to have more privacy.  It spontaneously happened one day.  I woke to the sounds of joined countdowns being called out and metal scraping over pavement.  Tim and Chad were the ones orchestrating the arrangement.  They had backgrounds in architecture and civil engineering, respectively.  I snorted out a laugh that they were finally getting to use their educations again, even in such a rudimentary way.  A triangle of three containers made up the new little enclosure.  Sheets were hung inside to create privacy screens and people split up into groups of three and four.  Naturally, Kerrie, Pat and Renee were together, as the only three other women in the group.  Vince, Hal and Mick took another container and Tim, Chad, Jimmy the Chef and that asshole Sean took the last one.  It made me pity and also question the attitudes of Tim, Chad and Jimmy.  None of them were particularly aggressive men like Sean, unless you counted Jimmy, who served a short prison sentence for beating up the parent of a kid who bullied his Down’s syndrome son.  Stupid guy had it coming so I wasn’t exactly sad that Jimmy acted the way he had.  What kind of degenerate picks on a Down’s syndrome kid til he cries?  Jimmy’s a little broken now, but who isn’t?  We’d all lost our families.  But at least he’s still nice to everyone.  I hoped Sean’s shitty influence wouldn’t bring those guys down. 

A container with a functioning door on each side was discovered and we moved it over to replace the one that had been covering the broken fence.  With the two doors, it created an air lock of sorts that made coming and going a lot easier.  Tim and Chad disassembled the handle locking mechanism on the outside door and swapped it to the inside so no one could let themselves in and attack us.  We also reinforced the supports around the container so it couldn’t be moved again. 

The women asked me to move back in and be with them but I just couldn’t do it.  I gave them a noncommittal answer that made it seem like I’d consider it if I got too cold.  Connor put his pack in the container with Vince, Mick and Hal and I felt a small stab of sadness that he hadn’t joined me but then again, we weren’t really together were we? 

The new sleeping arrangements didn’t stop him from coming to see me though.  No one ever questioned Connor when he decided to just get up and walk out.  He came and went as he pleased and I decided I’d let him come to me instead of seeking him out.  He didn’t disappoint.  I spotted him when I was almost to my container one night and stood in the open doorway impatiently until he realized I had seen him.   If I didn’t actually trust him so much, his lurking might creep me out but for some reason, it just doesn’t.  Despite his shitty attitude toward socializing, he wasn’t scary to me anymore.  Yeah, he liked rough sex but he never touched me unless I agreed to it.  And I was fully aware of what I was in for whenever we screwed.  For some reason I decided I wanted to turn the tables on him.  He passed me silently and I closed the door behind us.  I turned on the little battery powered lantern I’d found recently.  It had a solar recharger that was really neat and it lasted a long time.  I leaned back against the metal wall and crossed my arms over my chest.  Connor put his bow and quiver down in a corner and turned to begin moving towards me in his usual confident way.  We stripped in front of each other but I made sure I was done first. 

I put my hand on his chest and resisted him when he tried to move closer. 

“No.  Lie down.  I want to be in charge this time.”  I said softly.  Connor tilted his head slightly but then shrugged his shoulders and lay down.  I straddled him and sat there looking at the massive man who now lay beneath me, relatively obedient to my wishes so far.  I stroked his skin softly with my fingertips, tracing the contours of his muscles and following the length of his arms until I came to his wrists.  Lifting his hands, I leaned down and placed them on my breasts. 

“Gently…”  I whispered, just before kissing his lips softly.  When I leaned back, a pained look crossed Connor’s face and he sat up, pushed me onto my back and got up. 

“I can’t, Rocket.”  He hastily threw his clothes on, gathered his things and left, ignoring my protests. 

When he was gone, I punched the floor and swore.  I didn’t see him again for almost a week.  Oh, he was around the Village, as we collectively called our little container camp, but he wasn’t _around_.  No more glimpses of him out of the corners of my eyes, no more glances in my direction.  It drove me bat shit crazy because the only man who did look at me was Sean.  He made my skin crawl. 

The first snow dropped several inches on the ground.  It was so beautiful it almost allowed me to forget that outside the chain link fence was a forest full of white eyes.  Hopefully they were frozen solid.  The snow also revealed a set of boot prints that passed by the back of my container.  I noticed them when I was headed toward the trench a ways away that I used for my personal business.  Someone had been walking around back there and when I got closer, I took note of the size and pattern of the boot track.  Something told me it wasn’t Connor.  He wasn’t the type to be so obvious.  At the Village, I made a pretense of visiting the other women.  In reality, I was looking at the boots of the other men.  I suspected Sean, obviously, because I hate him, but I wasn’t ready to assume everyone else was innocent.  I saw several boot prints near Vincent, Hal and Mick’s container that looked similar.  I was actually disappointed that it wasn’t Sean because I so wanted to accuse him. 

Hal approached me later and asked to speak to me.  I looked down at his boots and he chuckled. 

“Girlie, did you come all the way over here to see who was sneakin around your place?”  I nodded.  He continued.

“It’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”  He looked over his shoulder at the rest of the camp.  In the purple darkness of evening, the light from the fires looked merry and warm.  He lowered his voice significantly and I had to lean close to hear him.

“I saw Connor come out of your place a while ago.  Ever since, I’ve been watching to see if he comes back.  Is he bothering you?”  Good old Hal.  Always looking out for the ladies.  I smiled and reached my mittened hand to his sleeve.  He cupped my elbow with concern. 

“No, he’s not bothering me.  We….  Have a _thing_ …. Well.  _Had_ a thing… going.  Don’t mention it to anyone.  We’re not together or anything.  It’s…. platonic?”  I wasn’t even sure myself what it was, especially now.  Hal’s eyes glinted in the dark.  I couldn’t see his features well but I was fairly certain he was significantly perplexed.  I couldn’t really blame him. 

“You… had _a thing_ … with _him_?”  He jerked his head toward the Village.  Even his whisper was perplexed.  I tried to explain.

“Well, yeah.  Kind of.  It just happened once and then we did it a couple more times.  I think I ruined it though.” 

“What happened?”  I lowered my head and looked at my snow covered boots. 

“I wanted it to be more than just… fucking… and I think it scared him off.”  Hal squeezed my arm and I looked up at him.

“Aren’t you afraid of loving again when the chances of losing that person are higher than not?”  His words were a simple but painful truth.  But I stubbornly shook my head.

“But if we’re going to die anyway… why not love who and when we can?”  Hal was quiet for a moment but then he sighed.

“Because it hurts even more to lose them when it does happen.”

“But Hal, it hurts to be alone!”  Hal hugged me then and I squeezed him hard.  I felt tears burning my eyes and I fought to keep them in. 

“Oh, baby girl.  I know.  But some people love too hard.  No one can afford to be distracted now.”  I nodded against his rough jacket.  I hadn’t thought of it that way.  Had Connor been with someone he loved so much that when she was gone he just couldn’t allow himself to fall again?  It would explain why he never let anyone close to him and while we had been physically intimate, there had always been an emotional detachment, especially on his part.  Slowing things down had threatened his buffer and destroyed what little we had.  He clearly wasn’t comfortable with anything more than sex.  Or maybe he had seen himself slipping dangerously close to something more but refused to let it take over.  It both broke my heart and gave me hope at the same time.  What a fickle, fucked up world we lived in!

I took a stroll around the industrial park and breathed deeply of the night air.  It had a calming influence and I returned to my container feeling drained.  It was cold and I was lost in my thoughts.  The more I thought about what Hal had said, the more it made perfect sense.   It was probably why I didn’t notice that I wasn’t alone. 

As soon as I’d turned from closing the door, I felt a hand cover my mouth.  Instinct made me start to fight but then I stopped.  It took another moment to realize that it wasn’t Connor, as I thought it had been.  No smell of cigarette smoke on his clothes, no tattoos on his arm, and he was far too short.  I thrashed against my attacker and tried to reach for my gun.  He knocked it away and took my knife as well before slamming me against my door.  It slid open partially from my struggles and I grabbed the edge and hauled it completely open before he jerked me backwards.  

“You fucking everyone in this camp?  I see how you look at that freak loner with the tats.  And it looks like you want Hal’s big black cock in you too.  You can’t be too upset about losing your husband if you’re opening your legs so much.  You won’t mind if I get in on the action, will you?”   It was Sean.  He pushed me down onto my sleeping bag and I managed to get a scream out.  Sean jumped on me and covered my mouth again but I hoped someone had heard.  I wasn’t going to wait to find out.  I kicked upward and landed my knee between his legs.  He crumpled onto me with a hissing groan and I shoved him off and ran out into the cold.  Instead of screaming for help, I saved my breath for running.  I sprinted into the main camp and banged on the metal door to Vincent, Hal and Mick’s container.  Vincent was at the door first but the other two were right behind him. 

I breathlessly told them what happened.  Mick walked to the other men’s container and hauled the door open.  Sean wasn’t inside.  The other three men were on their feet looking confused.  Mick was furious. 

“Spread out, all of you.  Find Sean.”  Hal was already stomping away angrily towards my container.  Patty had her head sticking out of the women’s container and I hurriedly went over to her.  When I was inside, I broke down. 

“I should have stayed with you!”  Renee settled onto her knees next to me and stroked my back in a motherly way. 

“It’s alright, darlin’.  You needed space.  But we’ve got room for you, always.  Stay with us tonight.  We’ve got blankets to spare.”  I nodded and Kerrie and Patty made room for me behind the curtain that hid the sleeping area from sight of the door.  A short time later, a soft knock came at the door.  Kerrie answered it.

I heard muffled voices and then the sound of the door sliding shut.  Kerrie came over and sat down next to me. 

“They found him.  He claims he was peeing in the woods and you got spooked. Vince and Mick are talking to him now.” 

“I wasn’t spooked.  He was in there!  He was in my container!”

“You sure it was him?”

“Yes!!”  I jumped up and though the other women tried to get me to stay, I stormed out.  Hal, Tim, Jimmy and Chad were all milling around outside Vincent and Mick’s container.  I opened the door and walked in.  Sean was standing in front of them.  He saw me right away.

“There she is!  Poor thing!  You should be called Rabbit, not Rocket!  I didn’t mean to scare you.  I guess I shouldn’t drink so much before bed, huh?”  He laughed loudly and I cringed, remembering his voice next to my ear. 

“You were in my room!  Waiting for me!  Vincent, he was going to rape me!”  Sean laughed again.

“Honey, you ain’t my type.  You’re overreacting to things that go bump in the night.”  I lunged for him.  Mick grabbed my arm. 

“See that?  She has it out for me.  Are we done here?  I’d like to get some shut eye.”  Sean said.  He walked past us all and left.  I shook my arm out of Mick’s grasp.

“That’s it?  You’re just going to let him go?”

“Rocket, it’s your word against his.  And we all know you don’t like him.”  I looked between Mick and Vincent.  I felt so betrayed by them both.  At least they had the decency to look a little embarrassed.  I ripped their door open and stalked out into the Village.  I heard Sean whistle at my back, making fun of my anger.  Hal shoved him and he shut up.  Chad and Jimmy exchanged pained glances with each other.  Tim stared at his shoes.   It was all around mortifying and I left it behind me.  In my container, my gun and knife were where they fell earlier.  I picked them up and put them in my belt.  I kicked my shit around and generally threw a temper tantrum.  When I’d messed everything up pretty bad I looked over it all and just wanted to cry. 

A quiet tap sounded at my door and I opened it angrily.

“What!!!”  I stopped short because I was face to face with Connor.  He looked past me at the mess I’d made.

“Remodeling?”  He deadpanned.  I turned away.

“Shut up.”  I kicked some stuff out of the way and walked farther into my room.  Connor followed and shut the door.  He righted my glowing lantern and stood near the wall. 

“I saw him leave here after you ran out.  I was coming to see you.”  Connor’s words made me incredibly angry. I spun to face him.

“I could have used that heroic testimony fifteen minutes ago!  What the hell?!”

“So everyone could know that we’ve been sleeping together?  No.”

“We haven’t been sleeping together.  We’ve been fucking.  That’s all.  You made that real clear last time.  And Hal knows.  He saw you.”  Connor stood straighter and crossed his arms but then shrugged his shoulders and lowered them. 

“Mm-hmm.  Well.  He won’t talk.”

“Why are you even here?” I sprung it on him because I was sick of dancing around the subject. 

“You’re upset.” 

“No shit.  I almost got raped by that asshole.” 

“You were upset before.” 

“So?”

“So I wanted to say…. If you want to be with Hal, I’m alright with it.”  His words flabbergasted me.  They came out of nowhere.  I didn’t know what to say.  He’d probably seen us hugging and read really far into it.  All I could do was get defensive.

“Since when do I have to ask your permission?”  Connor shrugged his shoulders.  I spluttered on.

“Oh, my god Connor!  Hal and I aren’t together!  Ok?  He’s concerned.  He _cares_ about me, unlike you.  I’m just tits and ass to you; good for a fuck or two but a relationship would be too much to ask.”  I flung my arms up and turned away.  I stood with one hand on my hip and the other over my mouth, regretting every word I’d just said. 

“You’re wrong.”  His voice was soft.  I lowered my head and shook it.  Why do men always think they know me better than I know myself? 

“Of course I’m wrong…  Here’s Rocket, overreacting yet again. ”  I lifted my hand from my mouth and gestured at the blank wall in front of me as I spoke with a shaking voice. 

“You’re wrong about me.”  I refused to turn around and I heard Connor step toward me.  I stood with my hands balled into fists at my sides.  I couldn’t look at him.  I stared at the mess I’d made on the floor instead.  He was right behind me and I couldn’t will myself to turn around.  I was shaking from the effort.  He touched the back of one of my hands and I almost exploded.  I gasped for breath and tried not to let my emotions take over.  It was nearly impossible. 

“I do care...”  He ran his hand up my arm and I felt as if I was choking.

“I want you to be happier than this.”  At that, I finally found the strength to turn around.  Connor’s face was an open book.  Gone were the hard lines and clenched jaw, the anger held in the muscles of his neck and tight shoulders.  A deep furrow was between his brows that made him seem sad more than anything.  I looked hard into his eyes and sighed.  I lowered my eyes to his chest because I couldn’t look at his face anymore.  I spoke to the buttons on his coat.

“There isn’t any true happiness in this world anymore.  Whatever it is, whoever it was that we loved before all of this…. We’ll never find that again!  But I know I don’t want to be alone… I want to love you.” I looked up at him again and he was clenching his jaw.  The openness in his expression was gone.  He didn’t answer me so I kept on.

“If you can’t let me love you the way I need to then please just go.  Every second you’re here hurts worse, so just go.”  Connor lifted his chin, took a deep breath and stepped backwards.  He turned and left silently.  I fell to my knees and screamed into my fists.  

I crawled into my sleeping bag and didn’t bother trying to clean up.  I woke to an insistent knocking. 

“Go away.”  I hoarsely shouted at the door.    The knocking started up again. 

“Jesus! I said leave!”  The door opened.  I rolled away from the bright light that poured in and covered my eyes. 

“Girlie…”  Hal’s voice was deep and worried.  I curled up into a ball on my side, unable to bear his concern.  He sat beside me on the floor and didn’t say anything.  I had to fill the silence.

“He said he wants me to be happy.”  I nearly sobbed. 

“I know, baby girl.”  That stopped me short.  I rolled over and looked at Hal, shielding my eyes from the brightest light.  He was looking down at me and I couldn’t even ask him how he knew but He answered my question.

“He asked me to come here just a little while ago.  He said, ‘she needs you’.”  I moaned in misery.  Hal leaned down and gathered me into his arms.  I clung to him and looked past his shoulder to the bright outdoors.  Connor was leaning against another container watching.  He stood straighter when he saw Hal embracing me and turned away.  He hefted his pack up onto his shoulder next to his bow and quiver crossing his back.  I knew he was leaving the Village for good. 

It was the beginning of a frigid winter and gusty wind was blowing snow around in skidding waves of icy pain outside.  No one was leaving their containers for anything.  Hal moved in with me a few days later.  We talked a lot.  Turns out, his real name was actually Gideon but he’d always hated it.  He was also a lot older than I thought he was.  He was picked on throughout his formative years for being a scifi nerd and having no interest in athletics so I laughed with him when he told me that was why he chose a vengeful computer’s name as his own.  His parents were divorced and he lived with his mom til she died of pancreatic cancer when he was in his twenties.  Hal took a job working at an IT help desk but sidelined at a comics store on the weekends.  He’d been generally happy and felt accepted among his peers. Hal told me about his Doberman named Doc Brown.  He’d never married.  He’d dated a lot of women but most of them just couldn’t understand his love of comics and movies.  He said his apartment looked like a hoarder’s and that it still pained him to know that some pretty valuable comics had once been in his possession but they had all been lost in the riots, looting and fires that happened in the wake of the initial outbreak. 

He shook his head at the loss of it all when the world went to crap. 

“Those were the good times, baby girl.”  I smiled at him from where I lay lounged against him.  My head rested on his chest and I nodded and tipped my face up to look at him.  His hand caressed mine softly.

I told him about my husband and my job at the front desk of a shipping and receiving company. There wasn’t much to say.  We’d been happy.  Boring but happy.  We talked about when he died because of Sean’s uncaring cruelty and refusal to help us and Hal held me close when I couldn’t talk anymore on it.

We spent the first few nights holding each other and sharing the warmth of two bodies lying together.  Kisses on the cheek turned into kisses on the mouth.  Touching over clothes became fondling beneath clothes.  Clothes came off and our naked bodies became new lands to explore and sensations to experience – the magical world of skin on skin in every way possible, but we stopped short of sex. We got off in other ways, using hands and fingers, as if we were both timid virgins learning our way.  It was as if sex was a boundary too deep to cross in such an uncertain world. 

It was almost three weeks later and in the middle of a blizzard when we did finally have sex.  Hal and I had gotten back under the blankets for lack of any other warmth and I stuck my cold hands under his shirt.  The noise he made sent me into fits of laughter and it quickly turned into a wrestling match with lots of kissing.  We both became very warm and before we knew it we’d undressed each other and I was scrambling naked in the freezing cold to find a condom.  I’d stockpiled any that I’d come upon in the hopes of continuing on with Connor but they had stayed unused and forgotten after our falling out.  I dove back under the covers and Hal hastily put it on.  He insisted on warming me back up.  Everything was slow like molasses; warm kisses, the stroking of hands, breath on the skin and the quiet sounds of our pleasure.   He entered me slowly, and I wanted all of him at once but he took his time.  Sex with him was exquisite.  Every sweet sensation was stretched out until it could go no farther and then renewed with each of his long, slow strokes into me.   My orgasm was like an avalanche.  It built and built until it was an unstoppable, roaring catastrophe of mindless pleasure. It was everything I’d wanted out of sex with the beauty of a relationship to go with it. 

We made the nights pass pleasantly.  When I woke in the mornings, whether we’d made love or not, Hal was always there beside me.  I found a great amount of happiness in it.   Hal loved me for all that I was and all that I wasn’t.  We gave each other comfort, pleasure and companionship and that was much more than most got in this world. 

I confess that I felt a lack though.  There wasn’t any reason for it but I missed Connor terribly.   I loved Hal, but I couldn’t stop also loving Connor.  As I threaded my fingers into Hal’s tight, dense curls and kissed him while he so passionately made love to me in every possible way, memories of Connor would sneak in and I’d find myself remembering the way he hurt and missing the way he made me hurt too.  His existence was comprised of so many forms of agony and it extended to those around him.  His eyes, his demeanor, the tense muscles in his jaw and his inability to allow anything good into his life.  Even the ink on his skin was something beautiful that came from pain.  Hal knew I thought about Connor.  We talked about him from time to time and often wondered where he was and how he was surviving the winter.  I had no doubt the man could survive anything.  Dying would be too easy and that wasn’t remotely acceptable for someone like him.  Hal knew I loved Connor too but we didn’t talk about that.  There was no point to it.  Why sully the good we had?


End file.
